Is a Madmax outcome coming before 2020? Thus do we need anonymity?

[explorer]

For most of people don't really need anonymous.

Do you mean

A)  If you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to hide

B)  If you have nothing (to lose) you've nothing to hide

C)  Something completely different?

As 'most people'  on this planet have nothing in the way of monetary or tangible wealth, B  seems most likely, but then the less one has, the more that little is likely valued.  If you want to keep what you've got, you need to either hide it, or hide it behind a threat/act of violence of magnitude greater than that which would take it from you.  Anonymity seems the least costly way of hiding your wealth and freedom from those willing to take it from you.

[1715021228]

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[blablahblah]

I don't respond to blahblahblah because he can't grasp simple concepts.

I put in all that effort just for you, and this is how you treat me?


Maybe I can't "grasp" concepts because they are immaterial? 

[contagion]

Who would use an Anonymous internet?

For most of people don't really need anonymous.

Do you mean

A)  If you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to hide

B)  If you have nothing (to lose) you've nothing to hide

C)  Something completely different?

As 'most people'  on this planet have nothing in the way of monetary or tangible wealth, B  seems most likely, but then the less one has, the more that little is likely valued.  If you want to keep what you've got, you need to either hide it, or hide it behind a threat/act of violence of magnitude greater than that which would take it from you.  Anonymity seems the least costly way of hiding your wealth and freedom from those willing to take it from you.

I think those that will be the most aggressive in supporting the anonymous internet I envision, are those who:

1) Have everything to hide because they are the knowledge age workers (e.g. programmers and hackers) which for example Obama wants to regulate as a public utility and DHS wants to censor as terrorists due to employing our right of free speech to criticize the government's policies. It is known the IRS has been used to attack political enemies and it is very difficult to fight an IRS audit or unjust judgement.

2) Are fucking tired of funding the welfare state and the government's perpetual wars.

3) Don't like the idea of Facebook et al tracking every thing they do and dislike the imminent digital fiat system which will track every transaction we do.

4) The billions in the developing world which are tired of funding the corrupt politicians and politically connected families which have looted their economies for decades.


Yeah I think it should be easy to start a global mass movement for anonymity if we can make anonymity easy and automatic.

The statists will resist and can huddle together with their governments and digital fiats and tax themselves into oblivion. Meanwhile, we the rest of the people will carry on prosperously without that ball-and-chain around our neck.

[contagion]

...

Here are some more comments from that ZeroHedge page.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-31/martin-armstrong-what-point-does-revolution-take-place#comment-5399115

One good place to start is OUTLAW negative advertising.

Wow!  Gotta love Armstrong's idea of a "revolution".  Let's use a government entity to suppress free speech.  As awful as mud-slinging dirty campaining is, it is still constituted as free speech.  Why is this garbage posted on a libertarian leaning site?  Absolutely dreadful.

I would take a totally asleep America over some of these dreadful ideas posted as "solutions" anyday.

Yeah booboo, Armstrong calls for a "revolution", yet under his proposal the very same politicians he distrusts are now going to regulate what a fair campaign ad is, and if a campaign ad isn't good enough the candidate faces PRISON TIME??? What the heck is this doing on zero hedge / fight club??? The incumbents would remain in power forever under such a scheme because any possible opponent would be thrown in a government cage.

I would expect to see this crap on Foreign Affairs, Faux News or the Washington Post, not on a libertarian website.

I am always wondering about Armstrong's true intentions because I also notice he tries to deflect all blame away from the banksters who are colluding and doing creative destruction to bring about a NWO. And also Armstrong is always promoting implausible "solutions" that require us to reform government globally, which is of course can not be done without some sort of massive uprising and NWO result. He knows damn well that we can't reform the government without first collapsing the socialism, because the politics are dictated by the fact that the boomers will not agree to live in trailer parks and eat oatmeal and Chef Boyardee canned Ravioli instead of their current more lavish lifestyles.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/12/27/belarus-imposes-price-controls-as-ruble-falls/

We can deal with this coming trend in two ways. First, you can just hide your head in the sand and pretend it will not happen. Second, we can understand its cause and then address the real problem – corruption in government with structural reforms. The more people who we can win over to understanding the nature of the beast, the greater the chances of rising from the ashes.

...

Once again Armstrong is promoting (non-)"solutions" that require global, centralized governance.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/12/28/understanding-big-bang-2015-75/

Some government is necessary and can benefit society. Yet 100% government control leads to economic collapse for government cannot plan and direct an economy from a central detached position. Consequently, the manner in which the derivatives have been implemented on an ad-hoc basis absent a central clearing-house presents the greatest of all dangers – not the mere fact that derivatives exist at all since they are perhaps the oldest financial contract of all extending back to Babylonian times. However, everything cannot be transformed into a derivative absent a central clearing house for that leads to chaos and corruption no different than the broken-banknote era that resulted in the Panic of 1837.

The problem with derivatives lies in the decentralization of their market makers and as such, there is no manner in which anyone can really gauge or actually judge the true risk and rewards. Since banks create derivatives on their books and such contracts are not fungible, if the bank becomes exposed to risks it did not anticipate, they run with their hands out to government for a bailout every single time.

Marty is addressing only a symptom. Instead the real solution is to attack the generative essence of the problem — that taxation is not optional thus the banksters can use the government's Max Weber monopoly on force to expropriate capital from the public. No need to monitor the derivatives with a central clearing house, when we can make it impossible for the banksters to run to the government for a bailout as follows.

Thus solving the generative essence is about providing an anonymous internet and anonymous decentralized crypto-currency so that the fledgling Knowledge Age can escape from the ball-and-chain which is government and its requisite corruption due to the THE IRON LAW of Political Economics[1].

So then the limited government we desire is enforceable by our individual power to opt out of taxation — fuck rights we don't need rights we need actual individually sovereign power!

The generative essence solution is decentralization, not the global, centralized NWO bullshit that Martin Armstrong is preaching.

[1] In collectivized action the self interest incentives are misaligned with the global optimization.

[CoinCube]

Resources pushing out from the centre? Care to elaborate? Sounds like sunlight, or some low-entropy state bathing everyone with excess energy, in which case the flow should be instantaneous unless there's friction. You seem to be complaining that the friction doesn't start at the skin of the organism, rather it starts somewhere outside, feeding a layer of bureaucratic fat. IMO a much bigger disruption than 3d printers and related individual knowledge creation tools, would be a breakthrough with domestic LENR/cold fusion/whatever ultra-safe and abundant energy that bypasses the oil and gas giants. Then you get your reversal.

This was amusing blablahblah but also vacuous and noncontributory.

[CoinCube]

So let Armstrong have his NWO bullshit...I can't believe he is this dumb... Either he knows this, or is just incredibly fucking naive.

As with so many things with Mr. Armstrong there is insufficient information to make an informed judgment. I would not be at all surprised if his prediction of a downturn in late 2015 is correct although I would note that others are also predicting the same. He also is obviously intelligent and has a firm grasp of ancient history. In regards to his claim to be a market oracle, however, and his offer to sell investor’s access to his spectacular AI that can predict the market I remain skeptical.      

Contracts shouldn't be designed to require the courts for restitution. This drives collectivism as you duly noted.

There will always be a need for dispute resolution and mediation in contracts. It is impossible to fully remove this need. Although it is certainly possible to mitigates the state’s role via private judges/arbitrators the best that can be achieved here is minimization.  

Pedophilia, rape, murder, assassination have been going on since Mesopotamia. Communications were always anonymous in the past. You want a 666 control system to try to stop what has always existed and you will get instead your nirvana of megadeath.

Anonymous internet communication doesn't make it more difficult to hunt down individuals as compared to the way it was done before the internet. There was always anonymous money and transactions in the past. Whereas, if we give the State the power to make all transactions trackable in the imminent switch over to digital currency, we will surely all die in megadeath 666.

Two separate issues here. 1) Is there a social cost to adding unbreakable anonymity in monetary transactions? 2) Is the cost worth the benefits?

It is true that such crimes are ancient ones. However, it is also true that the creation of a marketplace where such activities can be financed in absolute anonymity will lead to an increase in said activity.  

Ask yourself this question. If everyone in the world was suddenly gifted with your current understanding of fiat, cryptocurrency, socialism and its dangers would you want anonymity in a world currency? The answer in my opinion is no. In such a admittedly very unrealistic scenario there would be no need for anonymity as the populace would vote to dismantle the foundations of fiat based socialism. There would be no justification for facilitating the aberrant social behavior that unbreakable anonymity helps hide.

Now obviously that is a completely unrealistic scenario. However, I believe it demonstrates why the long term solution to this problem is education and where that fails natural selection. Anonymity is a useful means to protect individuals until society progresses to the point where it can be safely set aside.

Internet anonymity is nothing like burying gold coins. It doesn't have to be cumbersome nor cost more (but there is a lot of programming work that needs to be done to make it so). It doesn't have to decline the velocity of money and can in fact increase the velocity which has been collapsing, by providing an outlet for the private sector to grow and interrupt without the oppression of the State.

Perhaps but this has yet to be proven. Certainly nothing that exists today meets this criteria. The state is likely to come down hard on an anonymous cryptocurrency if it starts to gain traction. That alone will increase the cost of using it.

[contagion]

Is Anonymity undesirable for society or unrealistic?

Contracts shouldn't be designed to require the courts for restitution. This drives collectivism as you duly noted.

There will always be a need for dispute resolution and mediation in contracts. It is impossible to fully remove this need. Although it is certainly possible to mitigates the state’s role via private judges/arbitrators the best that can be achieved here is minimization.

In the part of my prior post which you did not quote, I explained that certain contracts can be indisputable because they are algorithmically settled. With the Knowledge Age, I expect these type of indisputable contracts to become a preponderance of the GDP[1]. My hypothesis is the Knowledge Age changes the fundamental basis of society.

For example, I expect the monetization of open source to foster granularity of project modules. So this means instead of contributing to for example Firefox or Linux source code, an open source developer could instead contribute to a module of source code with a much more general but limited scope of functionality (e.g. a HTML rendering engine or an image format rendering engine, i.e. the latter is a sub-module of the former module). These modules would then be funded by a license fee paid by the users of the software. The key here is micropayments, because each module would self-register itself on installation and request a micropayment from the user. The user would be shown  an aggregation dialog box of all the micropayments for the all the modules in the software they want to install and use, and click to approve the payments. A huge advantage is then we can upgrade specific modules of a software, so we can customize software to our liking. For example, Mozilla assholes would no longer have the power to do what I warned them would be egregiously unpopular with website developers. You thus see from that Mozilla fiasco that even in open source, the IRON LAW of Political Economics applies. The way open source funding works now is that the key developers of large projects are funded by large corporations. Thus only the core developers receive remuneration. And the synergies and network-effects are highly muted as compared to the new paradigm I describe above.

[1]	Iron was a precious metal 342 B.C.. Commodity prices inexorably trend downwards. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=495527.msg6065144#msg6065144 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=495527.msg6082580#msg6082580 http://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.html#2nd_Law_of_Thermo

 

Pedophilia, rape, murder, assassination have been going on since Mesopotamia. Communications were always anonymous in the past. You want a 666 control system to try to stop what has always existed and you will get instead your nirvana of megadeath.

Anonymous internet communication doesn't make it more difficult to hunt down individuals as compared to the way it was done before the internet. There was always anonymous money and transactions in the past. Whereas, if we give the State the power to make all transactions trackable in the imminent switch over to digital currency, we will surely all die in megadeath 666.

Two separate issues here. 1) It there a social cost to adding unbreakable anonymity in monetary transactions 2) Is the cost worth the benefits.

It is true that such crimes are ancient ones. However, it is also true that the creation of a marketplace where such activities can be financed in absolute anonymity will lead to an increase in said activity.

Firstly, I philosophically do not agree that which is natural is a cost for society. I believe the antithesis is the truth, which is that statism attempts to enforce unnatural outcomes[2], which is huge cost on society because nature always wins in the end.

But more saliently, as usual is appears you don't view the issue holistically and only look at one of the vectors that the new paradigm changes. For example, parents have a responsibility to protect their children from paedophilia and the Knowledge Age will economically empower individuals so they can have more influence over their kids, i.e. not be dependent on sending their kids to public schools where they lose some of their individuality and morals. The current statism is destroying the family unit which destroys children and makes them more vulnerable to paedophilia. Statist funded feminism[2] is causing more rape than anonymity could ever hope to. Murder rates are 26 times higher amongst blacks who have lower IQs and knowledge age skills — fact is that Knowledge Age workers do not murder. Increase in the risk of collectively funded assassination would be a great incentive to be anonymous and to not be a public figure, thus another restraint on corrupt governance and overpaid actors and sports stars which are a moral turpentine on society ("let them eat cake" or "feed them bread and circus" to keep their minds preoccupied).

Note I believe IRON LAW of Political Economics can't coexist with the Knowledge Age, because remember my thesis is that knowledge isn't fungible and can't be financed, thus it really can't be centralized and controlled and thus the government must eradicate the Knowledge Age if the government is to survive. In short, there is war ahead and only one side can survive. If the government wins, humanity loses.

[2]

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/10/13/defeating-the-business-cycle-a-goal-for-thousands-of-years/ http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/10/01/what-socialism-destroyed-govt-shutdown/ http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/04/11/socialism-at-its-best-how-to-destroy-the-wealth-of-a-nation/ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9910747#msg9910747 (Western civilization destroyed by trying to enforce gender equality) http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4934 (The true meaning of moral panics) http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/03/04/5-ways-feminism-has-ruined-america http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3567 (What ‘privilege’ means to me) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=495527.msg5916097#msg5916097 (Banning both breathing and death)

 

Ask yourself this question. If everyone in the world was suddenly gifted with your current understanding of fiat, cryptocurrency, socialism and its dangers would you want anonymity in a world currency? The answer in my opinion is no.

I entirely disagree. I would still want anonymity because it provides the correct incentives for the game theory of society, as I enumerated above. Never should the game theory be based around personalities, but rather based on actual deeds which has nothing to do with identity. I view this very mathematically. Thanks for calling me out to explain my philosophy so it is available in the public record.

In such a admittedly very unrealistic scenario there would be no need for anonymity as the populace would vote to dismantle the foundations of fiat based socialism. There would be no justification for facilitating the aberrant social behavior that unbreakable anonymity helps hide.

Now obviously that is a completely unrealistic scenario. However, I believe it demonstrates why the long term solution to this problem is education and where that fails natural selection. Anonymity is a useful means to protect individuals until society progresses to the point where it can be safely set aside.

Not only unrealistic, but uniformed about the real game theory of society. Also society can't vote anonymity out of existence. Nothing can stop anonymity unless it is technologically possible for a central authority to squelch it. See below...

Internet anonymity is nothing like burying gold coins. It doesn't have to be cumbersome nor cost more (but there is a lot of programming work that needs to be done to make it so). It doesn't have to decline the velocity of money and can in fact increase the velocity which has been collapsing, by providing an outlet for the private sector to grow and interrupt without the oppression of the State.

Perhaps but this has yet to be proven. Certainly nothing that exists today meets this criteria. The state is likely to come down hard on an anonymous cryptocurrency if it starts to gain traction. That alone will increase the cost of using it.

This is the big open question. Even I am not sure how this will play out, but I will say do not entirely underestimate the power of the Knowledge Age. It is possible we can render the government's power quite impotent. For example, if the government wants to pay footsy with internet kill switches and packet filtering, we can switch to P2P mesh networks of WiFi routers and stenography. Also if the Knowledge Age is more profitable for people than the collapsing socialism which becomes draconian, then the majority of people walk away from the government (withdraw their support for its authority) and walk to anonymity and the Knowledge Age. It could be like the fall of the Berlin Wall, one day the government realizes they've lost and it falls peacefully in tidal wave action.

That is my grand hope.

[pungopete468]

Pedophilia, rape, murder, assassination have been going on since Mesopotamia. Communications were always anonymous in the past. You want a 666 control system to try to stop what has always existed and you will get instead your nirvana of megadeath.

Anonymous internet communication doesn't make it more difficult to hunt down individuals as compared to the way it was done before the internet. There was always anonymous money and transactions in the past. Whereas, if we give the State the power to make all transactions trackable in the imminent switch over to digital currency, we will surely all die in megadeath 666.

Two separate issues here. 1) Is there a social cost to adding unbreakable anonymity in monetary transactions? 2) Is the cost worth the benefits?

It is true that such crimes are ancient ones. However, it is also true that the creation of a marketplace where such activities can be financed in absolute anonymity will lead to an increase in said activity.  

Ask yourself this question. If everyone in the world was suddenly gifted with your current understanding of fiat, cryptocurrency, socialism and its dangers would you want anonymity in a world currency? The answer in my opinion is no. In such a admittedly very unrealistic scenario there would be no need for anonymity as the populace would vote to dismantle the foundations of fiat based socialism. There would be no justification for facilitating the aberrant social behavior that unbreakable anonymity helps hide.

Now obviously that is a completely unrealistic scenario. However, I believe it demonstrates why the long term solution to this problem is education and where that fails natural selection. Anonymity is a useful means to protect individuals until society progresses to the point where it can be safely set aside.

This problem ultimately boils down to two different issues and a single solution won't work for both.

Anonymity is a shield, not a sword; it will be used to protect innocents and criminals equally in the same capacity. Since there are so many more innocent people potentially in need of protection from oppression/coercion than there are criminals who would use anonymity as an advantage, the societal cost/benefit ratio of anonymity is heavily slanted in favor of the innocent members of society.

Tracking the financial history of every person like some kind of "overseer" may reduce these types of crimes but potentially at the highest cost imaginable. Already, there are genuinely "good" people, very productive members of society who get swept up in the system. For instance, a well liked local high school teacher was imprisoned for several years recently for tax related offenses. When these things happen, society loses almost every time...

Internet anonymity is nothing like burying gold coins. It doesn't have to be cumbersome nor cost more (but there is a lot of programming work that needs to be done to make it so). It doesn't have to decline the velocity of money and can in fact increase the velocity which has been collapsing, by providing an outlet for the private sector to grow and interrupt without the oppression of the State.

Perhaps but this has yet to be proven. Certainly nothing that exists today meets this criteria. The state is likely to come down hard on an anonymous cryptocurrency if it starts to gain traction. That alone will increase the cost of using it.

That's another advantage of anonymity... What exactly would the state "come down hard" on when the state would be unable to determine if the anonymous instrument had been used at all by a specific individual or business? The function of anonymity is to protect the user from the state or any other third party who desires to control or restrict market freedom... They may as well write laws against it, but those laws would be no more enforceable or provable than writing a law against "impure thoughts." The only way to prove that the law had been violated would be by confession or personal record since true anonymity would leave no useful evidence behind...

[contagion]

http://www.featurepics.com/FI/Thumb300/20100525/Little-White-Church-Hill-1550025.jpg

My simple dream; what is all my babble really about? I envision local, townhall direct hands on government (where you know every body within your Dunbar number limit) will be the surviving and thriving form of limited government that I envision will be enabled and sustained by the paradigm I promoted in my prior 3 posts. This will be the like the warm feeling of the little white Baptist church on the hill in Alabama where I sang songs of contentment and faith with my extended relatives who were farmers. I visualize closer communities and stronger interpersonal relationships. I view happier and more socially engaged families. I visualize we can return to communities while still interacting internationally via the internet for maximum division-of-labor and human prosperity. I can dream can't I?

[BitcoinFreak12]

http://www.featurepics.com/FI/Thumb300/20100525/Little-White-Church-Hill-1550025.jpg

My simple dream; what is all my babble really about? I envision local, townhall direct hands on government (where you know every body within your Dunbar number limit) will be the surviving and thriving form of limited government that I envision will be enabled and sustained by the paradigm I promoted in my prior 3 posts. This will be the like the warm feeling of the little white Baptist church on the hill in Alabama where I sang songs of contentment and faith with my extended relatives who were farmers. I visualize closer communities and stronger interpersonal relationships. I view happier and more socially engaged families. I visualize we can return to communities while still interacting internationally via the internet for maximum division-of-labor and human prosperity. I can dream can't I?

Wow that's really nice, even i would support a government as small as that, there is no reason for any government to tax us 50% of our wealth.

Let me list the tax rates worldwide ,the personal tax rates, excluding corporate taxes or other misc taxes that are not levied from the average people, those which have 0% taxes or perhaps less than 10% are the FREE COUNTRIES, under 25% i consider it moderately enslaved, medium government. And the rest (>25%) have been infested with a statist maffia government, and looking by the numbers, about 88% of them have a maffia government or some variation of it.

Ok so these are the tax rates stolen from the average people worldwide (not including the "inflation tax"):

Afghanistan    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Albania    23   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Algeria    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Angola    17   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Argentina    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Armenia    26   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Aruba    59   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Australia    45   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Austria    50   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Azerbaijan    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Bahamas    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
Bahrain    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
Bangladesh    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Barbados    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Belarus    12   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Belgium    53.7   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Bermuda    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
Bolivia    13   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Bosnia and Herzegovina    10   %   FREE COUNTRY
Botswana    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Brazil    27.5   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Brunei    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
Bulgaria    10   %   FREE COUNTRY
Cambodia    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Cameroon    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Canada    29   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Cayman Islands    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
Chad    60   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Chile    40   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
China    45   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Colombia    33   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Congo    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Costa Rica    15   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Croatia    47.2   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Cyprus    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Czech Republic    22   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Denmark    55.6   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Dominican Republic    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Ecuador    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Egypt    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
El Salvador    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Equatorial Guinea    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Estonia    21   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Ethiopia    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Euro area    44.5   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Fiji    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Finland    51.5   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
France    50.3   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Gabon    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Georgia    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Germany    47.5   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Ghana    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Greece    46   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Guatemala    7   %   FREE COUNTRY
Guinea    40   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Honduras    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Hong Kong    15   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Hungary    16   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Iceland    46.22   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
India    33.99   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Indonesia    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Iraq    15   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Ireland    48   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Isle of Man    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Israel    50   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Italy    47.9   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Ivory Coast    60   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Jamaica    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Japan    50.84   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Jordan    14   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Kazakhstan    10   %   FREE COUNTRY
Kenya    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Kosovo    10   %   FREE COUNTRY
Kuwait    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
Laos    24   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Latvia    24   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Lebanon    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Lesotho    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Libya    10   %   FREE COUNTRY
Liechtenstein    21   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Lithuania    15   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Luxembourg    43.6   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Macao    12   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Macedonia    10   %   FREE COUNTRY
Madagascar    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Malawi    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Malaysia    26   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Malta    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Mauritania    33   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Mauritius    15   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Mexico    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Moldova    18   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Mongolia    10   %   FREE COUNTRY
Montenegro    9   %   FREE COUNTRY
Morocco    38   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Mozambique    32   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Myanmar    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Namibia    37   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Netherlands    52   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
New Zealand    33   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Nicaragua    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Nigeria    24   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Norway    39   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Oman    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
Pakistan    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Panama    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Papua New Guinea    42   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Peru    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Philippines    32   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Poland    32   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Portugal    56.5   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Puerto Rico    33   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Qatar    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
Republic Of The Congo    45   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Romania    56.5   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Russia    13   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Rwanda    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Samoa    27   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Saudi Arabia    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
Senegal    40   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Serbia    15   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Seychelles    15   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Sierra Leone    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Singapore    20   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Slovakia    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Slovenia    50   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
South Africa    40   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
South Korea    38   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Spain    52   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Sri Lanka    24   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Sudan    15   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Suriname    38   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Swaziland    33   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Sweden    56.9   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Switzerland    40   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Syria    22   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Taiwan    40   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Tanzania    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Thailand    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Trinidad And Tobago    25   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Tunisia    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Turkey    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Uganda    40   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Ukraine    17   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
United Arab Emirates    0   %   FREE COUNTRY
United Kingdom    45   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
United States    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Uruguay    30   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Uzbekistan    22   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Venezuela    34   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Vietnam    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Yemen    15   %   MODERATELY ENSLAVED COUNTRY
Zambia    35   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY
Zimbabwe    50   %   STATIST SLAVEMASTER COUNTRY

data provided by: http://www.tradingeconomics.com

[contagion]

After reading this post, you ask yourself whether you really can say with a straight face that society is not being torn apart.

Ok so these are the tax rates stolen from the average people worldwide (not including the "inflation tax"):

Are those income tax rates, excluding licensing fees, sales, VAT, inheritance, social security, health care, and property taxes? In most countries you'd need to add many percentage points for the rest of those. Obamacare for example will add the 2.5% Cadillac tax.

Also you didn't include the cost of complying with regulations, which for example adds another 14% of the GDP in the USA (so roughly a 14% tax on average):

http://grandfather-economic-report.com/gov-trend.gifhttp://grandfather-economic-report.com/spend-regulation.gif

Pretty much if you live in a developed country, then 70 - 90% of your wealth is expropriated and pilfered by the combination of all those.

Also most of the FREE countries you listed are subsidized by oil, and their populations have been growing faster than the oil revenues, thus they eventually will become statist jails too.

Last but not least, you forgot to add the Civil Forfeiture Tax in the USA.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/09/24/canada-warns-its-citizens-not-to-take-cash-to-usa/

Canada Warns its Citizens Not to Take Cash to USA

The Canadian government has had to warn its citizens not to carry cash to the USA because the USA does not presume innocence but guilt when it comes to money. Over $2.5 billion has been confiscated from Canadians traveling to the USA funding the police who grab it.

If you are bringing cash to the land of the free, you will find that saying really means they are FREE to seize all your money under the pretense you are engaged in drugs with no evidence or other charges. It costs more money in legal fees to try to get it back so it is a boom business for unethical lawyers to such an extent that only one in six people ever try to get their money back and the cops just pocket it. That’s right. Money confiscated is usually allowed to be kept by the department who confiscated it. This is strangely working its way into funding police and pensions. This is identical to the very issue that resulted in the final collapse of Rome when the armies began to sack cities to pay for their pensions.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/10/09/civil-asset-forfeiture-police-corruption-exposed/

Civil Asset Forfeiture Police Corruption Exposed

The police have become outright criminals and can confiscate people’s property and keep it for themselves. This is one of the best explanations I have ever seen. It correctly states that the legal action is against the property – NOT YOU!

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/11/11/civil-asset-forfeiture-scam-state-legalizes-marijuana-fed-confiscate-your-home-for-possession-of-just-10-worth/

Civil Asset Forfeiture Scam – State Legalizes Marijuana Feds Confiscate your Home for Possession of just $10 worth

The government position in Civil Asset Forfeiture is they do not have to prove you did anything. In fact, even if you are charged with a crime and are acquitted by a jury, they still confiscate your property for legally people are never found “innocent”, they are found “not guilty.” This gives government the moral justification to just take your stuff.

The real interesting development is that states may legalize marijuana, but it remains a federal crime. They do not prosecute the people in those states, but for $10 worth of marijuana they can confiscate your house and never have to charge you. Police are pulling people over leaving states where they sell marijuana and if the police find marijuana in the car, there goes the car.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/12/22/only-the-rich-can-afford-to-keep-their-homes/

Only the Rich Can Afford to Keep Their Homes

...Phily.COM has reported the case of Christos Sourovelis and Doila Welch,who were both caught up in having their homes seized to pay police pensions when the police arrested a relative they claimed was dealing drugs on their properties. Today, you basically have to shun relatives and never pick up a hick-hiker in trouble for if they have any drugs, even marijuana, there goes your assets.

The prosecutors, only after these people has money for lawyers and the press got involved, moved for dismissal in Common Pleas Court.

Here is the entire problem. Only the rich can win for it is your burden to fork-over huge legal fees. If you do not have the money for lawyers, there goes your property. This is what is desperately wrong in America. Any law passed becomes your burden to prove it is unconstitutional. They can actually pass the ancient right of kings under the Common Law since there is precedent known as Prima Noctum – first night. The governor, mayor, county freeholder, whoever, could “legally” claim the right to spend the first night in bed with any women getting married in their district. It would then become your burden to say – NO. That is uncivilized. There is ABSOLUTELY nothing as it now stands for them to pass such a law. It is then the public’s burden to say no way and fight. This is seriously wrong within out legal system. This allows police to kill people randomly or to pull every person over on their way to work to see if they have all their identification. Whatever they do is OK because they do not FIRST have to go to some constitutional court and ask – is this law justified? Consequently, only the rich can defend the constitution. All others can pray – that’s about it.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/11/21/cities-budget-civil-asset-forfeiture-as-part-of-their-funding/

Cities Budget Civil Asset Forfeiture As Part of their Funding

Since 2009, Washington, D.C. officers have made more than 12,000 civil asset seizures under city and federal laws, according to records and data obtained from the city by The Washington Post through the District’s open records law. Half of the more than $5.5 million in cash seizures were for $141 or less, with more than a thousand for less than $20. D.C. police have seized more than 1,000 cars, some for minor offenses allegedly committed by the children or friends of the vehicle owners, documents show. Any excuse to simply rob the people is in full bloom.

Worse yet, cities need money desperately. They are now including civil asset forfeitures as part of their budget. In other words, police are under orders to confiscate your money for any excuse possible. This was the end phase of the Roman Empire. The army began sacking Roman cities on the pretense they stood against whoever the proclaimed to be emperor. Rome weakened itself and cannibalized its own civilization. This is what government is doing now in the USA.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/12/29/government-imprisoning-people-who-cannot-pay-a-fine/

Government Imprisoning People Who Cannot Pay a Fine
Posted on December 29, 2014 by Martin Armstrong

Some people have said I am too critical of government and that government is here to help us. The only thing that government is here to do is to help themselves to other people’s money. Around the world governments are desperate for money...

In Italy, the municipal governments have cameras on everything. They make roads very cleverly accessible by car for brief periods turning them off an on like a light-switch. Many cities in Italy live off of fining tourists. Travel to Italy, but never rent a car. You will be getting tickets in the mail years after your trip with just curt statements you drove down some street that was unauthorized. Of course they will not tell you even the street, day, or time. Just send them money. Many cities in Italy issue more tickets each year then there are people living in the entire city. It has become a business.

...In Cherry Hill, New Jersey, locals know to avoid Route 70 at Springdale Road. This single camera has issued 17,000 tickets when the total
population (including children) is just under 70,000. It has been so outrageous that a class action lawsuit was filed.

The latest scam has been cities across the United States are increasingly turning to what are known as private probation companies to collect unpaid fines. If you do not pay the fine, they have been throwing people in prison – that’s right – debtor’s prison is back. These are not just small things. One girl in our office was pulled over for a small crack in her windshield. The cop gave her about $3,000 would of tickets for every possible thing he could write her up for. She was working part-time trying to finish university and did not come from a well off family. It was just outrageous treatment. When I tried to help her to pay some of the tickets online, they marked them all mandatory court appearance.

Indigent people are ending up in jail because they can’t afford to pay fines hurled at them by municipal governments who are dead broke and desperate to fine people, raise taxes, all so they can fund their
pensions. PBS first reported this story of debtor’s prison returning on TV last spring. The publicity is has been far too little.

...Fox News reported on the revival of Debtor’s Prison. NBC has also reported this rising problem. Congress is willing to help bankers – just never the public against the abuse of government.

[BitcoinFreak12]

Are those income tax rates, excluding licensing fees, sales, VAT, inheritance, social security, health care, and property taxes? In most countries you'd need to add many percentage points for the rest of those. Obamacare for example will add the 2.5% Cadillac tax.

Yes its: income tax +VAT +social security + govt health care + other misc taxes that affect the average person.

Excluding: corporate tax, car tax, property tax,inheritance tax, and other misc taxes that could be avoided if you are not in that group.

Those listed above are only those taxes, that are paid by every single worker, no matter what, basically its the forced racket tax basket.

Because you could legally avoid: property tax with renting, car tax by using the bus, inheritance tax by rejecting the inheritance.

But you can't avoid legally the: income tax, VAT, (social security and healthcare you can if you are unemployed, but what good is that).

I dont know about other countries, but my country is the 6th most taxed country on Earth so no wonder i`m so angry about this.


In my country an average worker has to pay the following (based on current fresh data i`ve researched):
■ income tax  16%
■ unemployed fund rate 0.5%
■ social security 10.5%
■ government health care 5.5% (you must pay this even if you have private health care  )
■ VAT: 24% (even for groceries, the government promised that it will lower VAT for food in 2014 but they lied)
(Of course you get some tiny deductions if you are single parent or if you are handicapped but this is the average persons tax sheet)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
====TOTAL TAX FOR AVERAGE WORKER: 56.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And this is only if you rent and are employed and own no additional stuff, here are some more taxes that also every person pays in my country
- property tax: i have no idea, its very complicated to calculate this
- TV tax: yes we have that too
- radio tax: yes we have that too
- car tax:  i have no idea, its very complicated to calculate this
- green tax (for cars or old buildings): yes give me more taxes...
- customs tariffs
- other vehicle taxes: agriculture vehicles or any other vehicle
- other taxes that are levied on companies , but which companies pay through the people by incorporating into the price
- inflation: ~1% the official number, of course i bet that it's more like around 3% as the CB probably lies about this
- various other local fees and other locally collected rackets by the town hall
- (we dont have inheritance tax because our politicians launder too much money between acquaintances and they would get caught if they would implement this)

Yep, so add this all up and you see that about 70-80% of my income will definitely go to the government, one way or another. And this list doesnt even include luxury goods. This is just basic taxes that every working people pays who owns even a small cottage.

And should I not be angry about this ? They steal 80% of my income man, its horrible!  

[BitcoinFreak12]

Let me give you guys a quick sobriety test, you have to answer me which one is the real thief in the picture:

http://s7.postimg.org/dmlnfu66j/image.jpg

If you answer the good answer then you get: Freedom and no taxes!

If you answer the bad question then you get: Huge taxes, government corruption and extreme regulation!

So please take your time to think it through

[CyberSuzy]

data provided by: http://www.tradingeconomics.com

Really good site. Many talk of Russian inflation and they are like 15th in November. Basically all Oil export countries suffered.

[contagion]

Those listed above are only those taxes, that are paid by every single worker, no matter what, basically its the forced racket tax basket.

Because you could legally avoid: property tax with renting, car tax by using the bus, inheritance tax by rejecting the inheritance.

But you can't avoid legally the: income tax, VAT, (social security and healthcare you can if you are unemployed, but what good is that).

Actually you can't avoid any tax, because for example the corporations incur the regulatory compliance costs, thus you pay these hidden taxes in terms of increased prices. You also forgot the taxes on fuel and taxes on insurance companies, etc..

And most people aren't average. Either they are below average, which means for example in the USA they are receiving earned income and child tax credits, which means they pay nearly no income tax and they receive welfare such as food stamps and rent assistance. Or they are above average, and pay even higher income taxes than your quoted figures assume.

- inflation: ~1% the official number, of course i bet that it's more like around 3% as the CB probably lies about this

Removing the Clinton era hedonics manipulations, the consumer price inflation rate in the USA is 5% and that doesn't account for the incredibly shrinking size of grocery products. But even that doesn't account for the hidden inflation that is accruing. Global stimulus added $8 trillion (the US only is shown below, not including China, UK, et al) since 2008, and this drove interest rates down globally which lead to massive expansion of loans in the developing world, which caused true price inflation to probably average in the double-digits in most of world. This will eventually come back to steal your wealth in the Western nations in the form of massive deflationary collapse, wherein you will lose all your income. Or for example in Australia in the form of imminent stagflation.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/gono/Fed%20Balance%20Sheet%20Projected%20Nov%203_0.jpghttp://i2.wp.com/armstrongeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/dfinf-cl.jpg?resize=350%2C391

Btw, Spain even taxes sunlight if you use solar panels.

And both Obama and France want to add a 16% tax on your internet use.

The system will continue to worsen until it expropriates every thing, which is exactly what causes 600 year Dark Ages, unless humanity finds a way to break out of the political inertia that holds the system together, i.e. the welfare and pension State where many people are dependent on the State.

[contagion]

Massive global deflationary collapse underway!

We are heading back to retest the $35 levels of the 2008 deflationary episode, except this time QE can't come to the rescue!

Even China can't stimulate this time.

The fat lady has sung. We are in the 9th inning and the game is over. Massive collapse dead ahead. Europe and Japan will collapse in 2015, and the USA will top out in October then collapse into 2016. We will be in global deflationary chaos by 2017 or so.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/12/29/crude-oil-in-the-grips-of-massive-deflationary-cycle/

http://kwout.com/cutout/h/ck/7q/s2u_bor.jpg

Our original forecast for oil back in 1997 was that it should rise to reach the $100 level at least by 2007. We reached $99.29 in 2007 and then 2008 was a wild trading year reaching $147.27 intraday crashing back to $35.13 and closing the year at $44.60. Oil made the intraday low in 2009 and then rallied back into 2011 to score the highest yearly closing at $98.83. We can see from the chart above back to 1902, the rally from the 1998 low was a perfect 13 year event. We warned that a year-end closing BELOW $57 will signal a sharp decline should continue. It certainly appears that will be accomplished and then we will look for a retest of the $35-$31 level. We see a Panic Cycle ahead on our yearly models as well. Overall, this is part of the meltdown for BIG BANG. There is not going to be much left standing as every field of investment and economy should be hit rather hard. We will be looking at putting out a special report on Energy for this is part of the massive global deflationary cycle underway.

[BitcoinFreak12]

Actually you can't avoid any tax, because for example the corporations incur the regulatory compliance costs, thus you pay these hidden taxes in terms of increased prices. You also forgot the taxes on fuel and taxes on insurance companies, etc..

And most people aren't average. Either they are below average, which means for example in the USA they are receiving earned income and child tax credits, which means they pay nearly no income tax and they receive welfare such as food stamps and rent assistance. Or they are above average, and pay even higher income taxes than your quoted figures assume.

Well in my country there are no really below average people. Our mighty comrade socialist government did resolved the inequality problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_opportunity

They did resolve it magnificently, by making everyone poor!

So instead of the mighty worker class, being strong, and you know all that red bullshit.

They actually make it the poorest slaves, by overtaxing them, because in my country the workers are the only ones that pay taxes.

So instead of making them strong and proud and all that propaganda, they make them the poorest loosers and slaves who need to work 18 hours/day to keep their house mortgage and shit.

While the elderly and jobless people get all the benefits, but even they dont get that much, they get a bone and they can chew it. It's all fking propaganda, before elections they get like 10% deductions of groceries, and thats all.

So while the worker class is paying 55+ % taxes (up to 80%) the unemployed and elderly gets a joke income, free welfare, but still very small.

And the politicians get to buy new caddilacs every single month from state money, yeah thats your socialism.
Everyone poor, but the politicians who are the blood sucking leeches of our country, they overtax us, and instead of atleast giving proper welfare, they just keep it for themselves.

And i`m against welfare, but atleast if they were socialists, atleast pretend themselves that they actually are, because at this point they seem like some vampires sucking on the blood of the working class

State welfare in Romania means literally what it means, it means that the statists (mostly politicians) get the welfare and everyone else gets a dick.

[contagion]

Wow he wrote a coherent (yet grossly incorrect as usual) thought worthy of a rebuttal...

--B doesn't actually exist anywhere.

The non-slaves who are operating in tax free zones such as the Bahamas don't exist.

Claiming the non-existence of non-slave frontiers would prove nothing if true, except that a Dark Age is unavoidable.

P.S. the infrastructure is misallocated and thus of dubious value in the megadeath collapse underway.

The rest of my rebuttal follows...

Rich people want to swim in money like Scrooge McDuck and they can't do that if they have to pay tax, therefore welfare is evil.  

Jealously stole your intellect.

Hey INSANE socialist pig idiot, GET A FUCKING CLUE:

Make sure you understand the IRON LAW of Political Economics (a.k.a. of Resource Statism).

Post boils down to "I can list some extreme examples of taxation which in my backwards brain proves that all taxation is bad".  Shut up and pay your taxes, neo-lib.

The salient point flew right over those loose rocks inside your cranium, that collectivized systems don't converge (i.e. don't optimize, a.k.a. no feedback loop stabilization) and instead diverge to megadeath every damn time over and over throughout history since Mesopotamia. Non-convergence has nothing to do with the specific examples of tax levels at any given stage of the divergence of collectivism along the way to its repeating horrific end game.

Even your feeble attempt at an obfuscatory rebuttal is factually incorrect. The insane tax levels I linked to (which exceed 19.5% limit of Hauser's Law) apply to the average worker in the nations of the world.

Better yet, develop a serious health condition which leaves you unable to do your job and then let's see you bitch about welfare.

I have a very serious health problem of an incurable HPV virus that after 8 years has led to a worsening and debilitating neuropathy and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, with high probability of throat or head cancer. And I don't rely on any health insurance whatsoever, nor do I receive any welfare whatsoever. Nor am I wealthy any more, and I have to work to support myself while also being blind in one eye since 1999 and approaching 50 years of age.

Go whine to your mother you immature useless blob.

Perhaps you are one of those many foreigners over here in the Philippines who are living on fraudulent disability welfare.

I'm guessing your world view basically equates to "fuck the poor".  

Even I have no income lately and my savings is dwindling, I do still help the poor.

When your fucking government is done stealing and pilfering all the resources of the world, there will be nothing left to give to the poor. That is why socialism results in megadeath every damn time. But you are not a student of history.

The "stealing for the poor" can not be orthogonal to the "stealing for the banksters, perpetual wars, ...". Until you understand that IRON LAW, then you will continue your nonsense thinking.

The definition of insanity is doing the same damn thing over and over again and expecting a different result (or continuing to make excuses and be in denial about the generative essence of the outcome).

So we should keep making sure that all the money ends up in the hands of those who already have the most?  The insane thing to do is to carry on down that path and keep concentrating wealth in the hands of those who aren't spending it back into the economy.

Why don't you understand that the "1%" is the middle class? It is all a lie. The fact is the middle class is being destroyed and society is again headed towards the usual megadeath.

Learn basic numeracy, please.

Learn how to separate propaganda from reality.

[BitcoinFreak12]

You pay hidden taxes for everything, right down to the food you eat. Even if you hop on a bus without paying the fare, your travel time gets adversely affected when other people in traffic try to economise on their fuel tax.

But what's missing from the discussion is acknowledgement that you're implying that there are some nasty "opportunity costs", but you're unable to calculate them because they're incalculable.

You're complaining about the real world, "A", (evil big government, taxes, inefficiency, etc). That's fine, everybody does it. And you're suggesting that an alternative, "B" would be better, which is some An-capish decentralised mini-local-government-semi-tribal stuff (hope I didn't get that wrong, I just meant the above things that you're promoting).

But as I've found other threads along the lines of "let's get rid evil gubmint and do B instead" is 2 problems:

--B doesn't actually exist anywhere.

--B maybe existed in the ancient past, but then the world naturally evolved into a state of (as you might say) higher entropy.

1) Explain me how is the inheritance tax hiddenly levied from you if you don't inherit anything?
Or the property tax if you are renting ? Because i dont get it.

Sure by taxing the insurance companies , the cost if insurance rises and actualy you get taxed with it not the insurer, but that comparison doesnt work on the property tax.

2) My suggestion was that the main problem with people is that they are powerhungry, which is ok.

It's not ok if they want to rule the world, but capitalism has a great solution for this, because in the ancient times, you see the romans every single general there wanted to rule the world, and everyone had an army and wanted to conquer the known world back then.

Through the middle ages and the industrial revolution this mostly became an economic problem, rather than a military.
Because nowadays you can't just build an army and go conquer the world, because you wold get noticed from the start and be stopped.
But you can rule it economically, if there are no competitors (due to overregulation).

So my simple solution is: introduce competition everywhere, that is what an-cap means, everything is privatized and everywhere is competition.

So if there is competition everywhere, then nobody can rule anything 100%, because there would be always atleast 20-30 competitiors with equal power.

This is the real democracy where you have always like 30 choices.

So if we fill the powerhungry military urge of people with an economic expansion urge, and put them to compete, then nobody can ever rule anything, and the more competition there will be the less power/person will be present.

Thus if all 7 billion people would participate in the economy as entreprenours (making robots the workforce), the power of the average person would be close to 0, and you wont get any new Caesars or Napoleons emerging from there.

The balance of power would be restored, and everyone could happily do whatever they want.

[toddtervy]

If we go into a Madmax world where the governments are bailing-in all the bank deposits, they are instituting negative interest rates to charge you money every month for having money, and the IMF's proposed net worth tax, etc...

Then all those who have wealth will want anonymity. And all those who don't have wealth and suck the tit of government, will not want anonymity.

Which one of those categories applies to you?

Do you think that Madmax outcome is not coming before 2020?

I wouldn't mind.  Things are already pretty messed up.  Would certainly make things more exciting.   However i think there's a lot of simple people that would be in for a rude awakening, especially in the U.S.